3 On Writing

3.1 The other day I drank so much that I had to vomit in the street. This happened in San Francisco's red light district, amongst the brothels and the seediest strip clubs. The area is called the tenderloin, apparently because policemen used to be paid more to work that beat and could therefore afford to bring home the choicest cuts of meat. It amuses me that an area of seedy strip clubs is called the tenderloin.

3.2 It might be thought surprising that, as a 30 year old graduate student of psychology, I am still capable of drinking until expurgation. To tell the truth, I was a little surprised myself, though I don't regret it. It's not something I like to do too often, but once in a while I think it's important. Also, I don't think you can fully claim to live in a city until you have left a little bit of yourself on its sidewalks; until you have marked your territory. And urinating on street corners is too easy. I'll leave that to dogs and tramps, both of which are plentiful here.

3.3 When I say vomit, I mean vomit. Not the polite behind-the-hand semi-cough which passes for vomiting amongst girls, and which amazes me. No, vomiting for me begins in the depths of my being. It is a cataclysmic internal event, a retching and a spewing, like the eruption of a volcano. The muscles of my thorax convulse and contract; I cannot breath. My eyelids close to prevent my eyeballs popping out. Finally the burning magma is ejected and stomach acid sears my nasal passageways like hot lava.



Afterwards my eyes are weepy and bloodshot. I wipe away the elastic strings of drool. The expectorated matter cools and hardens on the pavement. But these are wonderful moments; all is calm, all is peace. Gone are the discomfort, the dizziness and the saline saliva that heralded the event. There is a sense of great serenity, of unity with the universe. That is how to vomit.

3.4 For me writing novels is very much like vomiting; both spew things into existence.

2. My hubris.

2.1 I very nearly got kicked out of my university before it even started. Admittedly, it was entirely my own fault. My hubris.

I was offered a place on the condition that I completed four online prerequisite courses. I duly signed up for these with the best intentions. They were courses in abnormal psychology, learning theory, statistics and psychometric tests and measurements. However, I had not realised how time consuming the courses would be, nor how boring. Abnormal psychology was the exception. It was very engaging and I completed it. A 500 page text book accompanied the course. It is the only text book I have ever genuinely enjoyed reading. There was something fascinating on every page, e.g. that there is a phobia known only in Japan - the fear of offending other people either by one’s physical appearance, or one’s own perceived deformities, or by blushing, or by emitting an offensive bodily odour. It is called taijin kyofusho.

The abnormal psychology course was examined by a number of online multiple choice tests which I could do in my own time. I was allowed to use the text book and, since all the answers were in the text book, it was possible simply to use the index to look up the answers. I completed the course and concluded, based on the laughable way it was examined, that it was surely a mere formality.

The other courses were not as interesting. Learning theory was simplistic to say the least. Every week you had to do some online reading on a particular psychological school (eg behaviourism, cognitivism etc) then answer the following question in less than 200 words: Discuss how (insert psychological school) relates to your own understanding of the therapeutic process. Every week I pointed out that I have very little understanding of the therapeutic process; that is, after all, why I want to study here. The limited understanding that I do have is based on psychoanalysis which is really fairly irrelevant as far as most of the more recent schools are concerned. That’s pretty much what I wrote week in, week out.

So, based on my experiences with the abnormal psychology and learning theory courses, I approached statistics and psychometric testing with a fairly lackadaisical attitude. The subject matter was not as dry or as dull as I had anticipated – I could actually see the point of it. However, the nature of the course was regrettable. I had to watch hours of online Powerpoint presentations of statistical methods, delivered in a monotonous drawl by an instructor who frequently, and unsuccessfully, attempted to stifle his own yawns. Hardly very inspiring. On top of that, trying to do the homework on a Word document to email to the instructor was a nightmare. Word was not made to deal with numbers, fractions and a plethora of different statistical symbols.

I read the relevant text books but decided not to waste my time with the homework. In the first few weeks I was still doing some work related to the publication of my novel, then I had a wedding and a stag weekend in Spain, and a birthday weekend in Italy. I had moved out of my flat at the beginning of July and I share the view of Kipling’s Kim:

'Kim considered it in every possible light...a boy's holiday was his own property.'




I was, however, punctilious about transferring the first term’s fees to the university.

So, upon arrival in San Francisco I was aware that I had not completed the courses, but I really didn’t think it would matter very much. In fact, I wasn’t even sure that the university would know. Furthermore, I knew that all incoming students would have to sit a statistics and writing diagnostic exam during the first week. Anyone who failed either of those would have to take remedial classes during the first term. Having seen last year’s exams I was pretty confident about passing. And if I didn’t then I’d take the remedial classes. Big deal.

I went to the university campus to introduce myself to the woman in charge of international students on the day before orientation was due to begin. I had spoken to her on the phone in April and we had nattered at some length; she had told me that she was going on a tour of the gardens of Kent in May. I found her room, knocked and introduced myself to a likeable silver-haired lady. We picked up where we had left off, discussing the glories of Lady Churchill’s roses at Chartwell, when the door burst open to reveal the ashen-faced but still rather pretty Director of Admissions.

- You haven’t completed the online courses!

- Ah yes, I know. I was meaning to talk to you about that.

- What happened?

- Well, I was rather busy with a book tour (self-aggrandising lie), and then I had my wisdom teeth removed (bigger lie), and…

- You will not be allowed to enrol! Your visa will be revoked! You will have to reapply next year!

Well, you can imagine the rest. This was, apparently, a BIG DEAL. The Director of Admissions made an appointment for me to see the Dean of Admissions upstairs. I sat in a chair in the corner of the silver-haired lady’s room, mentally reeling yet managing to maintain a cheerful auto-pilot patter about Kentish flora.

After twenty minutes or so I was led upstairs, essentially to plead for my life. The Dean of Admissions was an imposing, middle aged black lady. Lady of colour, as they insist on saying here.

I sat down. I apologised. I explained. I lied. I requested. I entreated. I cajoled. I besought. All to no avail. She was adamant. I could not enrol in August. I would have to enrol in February and start studying then. That means my visa will be revoked and I will have to go back home, I said. And I no longer have a home, I added pathetically. For some reason – I am still not quite sure why – the Dean decided to call the silver-haired lady at that point. It was a glimmer of hope. The Dean was silent on her end of the phone for a long time. Then she replaced the handset and said, You can enrol now, but you will be on the moderated course (less modules in the first year), and you will have to retake the online courses.

Thank God for Lady Churchill's roses.

Lady Churchill's rose garden at Chartwell

As I walked out I felt a rush of gratitude for the Dean too. And now, thinking back, I find it quite extraordinary how she made me feel just like a little boy again. A little boy who has been naughty. There are perverts who would pay a lot of money for that. Independent, 30 years old, validated by my creative output…how quickly it all crumbles. And when I say rush of gratitude, that is probably not quite honest either. I felt a sort of love, a small boy’s love for the mother who doesn’t reject him.

1. First Impressions

1.1 I took a taxi from San Francisco airport to my hotel on Lombard Street. My taxi driver was a lady with electric blue streaks in her hair. She was a divorcee with eight grandchildren. She told me that she worked as a taxi driver to finance her studies. Having completed an MA in psychology a few years ago, she recently realised that her true vocation was painting, on account of her extraordinary sensitivity to colour. The car swerved dangerously as she rummaged around in her handbag for postcards of her paintings. I took my time looking through them, wassilating. Then I told her that they reminded me of Kandinsky. She was delighted. I don’t actually like Kandinsky all that much.

1.2 As we drove into the city I saw the mist cascading over the hills in the middle distance; beyond them lies the ocean. It was an impressive sight – a tsunami of cloud that plunged over the raised lip of earth before evaporating in ragged swirling tendrils.

1.3 On my first night I wandered down to Fisherman’s Wharf where my ‘school’ is. On the way back I stopped for a drink in a bar called ‘Dirty Martini’. A girl with a black eye sat down next to me. She explained that she had received the injury when she was mugged in front of her hotel – The Four Seasons – the night before. She went on to tell me that she came from a very old and wealthy family. Then she asked what I was doing in San Francisco. When I told her I had come here to train to become a clinical psychologist she replied that she had been a heroin addict and a self-harmer. Then she showed me her left forearm – it was a crisscross of livid scars and welts. I was tired, unenamoured and I wanted to go home. However, this was a dilemma: if I continued talking to the girl for too long I was in danger of giving the wrong impression, but if I left too soon or too abruptly I would presumably confirm the negative self image which had led to the self-harming in the first place. Eventually, finally, a suitable opportunity presented itself. I seized it gladly. As I wandered back to my hotel I wondered what I have let myself in for.

1.4 I have now moved into a hotel on Broad Street where the rooms only cost $150 a week. It is surrounded by strip clubs and within spitting distance of the City Lights bookstore. The narrow hotel corridors reek of marijuana at all times of day and night. There are some odd people slinking around, as well as a few cats (real cats). My room is tiny, about the size of the first room I ever had at school. That seems quite appropriate.

The City Lights bookstore, which was founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953, was the country's first to specialise in paperbacks.

1.5 I was walking through Chinatown when I saw a mixed race gay couple pushing a young child in a buggy. They were both big muscular men. The white man crossed the road to have a closer look at a restaurant. His boyfriend remained with the buggy in front of a shop selling dried chicken’s feet which dangled behind him on strings. In a camp, petulant voice the black man shouted to his partner: ‘Ramon! Ramon! Do they have booze? If they don’t have booze I’m not going in.’